Report: Auburn still under NCAA investigation

An NCAA official told Auburn coach Gene Chizik that it is not done investigating the Tigers’ football program and the recruitment of Cam Newton, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Chizik asked NCAA vice president for enforcement Julie Roe Lach several questions, including why the NCAA had not announced that the Newton investigation was finished, during a presentation at the Southeastern Conference meetings in Destin, Fla., last month.

“You’ll know when we’re finished,” Roe Lach told Chizik, according to several coaches who were at the meeting, the Times reported. “And we’re not finished.”

Kennedy told the Times he believed Chizik “was trying to get some finality to when the process was over, and it was an interesting debate, to say the least. I think the format of the meeting was set up to be generally about the lay of the land going forward. When he got into specific questions regarding their situation, I think we were all sitting back saying, ’I didn’t know that we were going here.”’

Newton won the Heisman Trophy and led Auburn to a perfect season and national championship last season, his only one with the Tigers.

Late in the season, the NCAA ruled that Newton’s father, Cecil, had tried to get Mississippi State to pay $180,000 for his son to play for the Bulldogs. Cam Newton ended up choosing Auburn instead of Mississippi State when he was being recruited out of junior college.

The NCAA also ruled there was no evidence Cam Newton or Auburn knew about Cecil Newton’s pay-for-play scheme, so neither was punished.